Reviews

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 PC Review

Multiplayer: Bennett Ring
It's easy to imagine how a Modern Warfare 3 Multiplayer design meeting might have played out. Keen Young Designer A suggests that the game should now include a mounting ability for machine guns, allowing players to prop their support weapons on ledges for added stability. Executive Producer B thinks it's an ok idea, and commissions a focus group test where 100 hardcore COD players put the new mechanic through its paces. Ninety-four of them respond with the complaint that it slows the pace of the game, and encourages "douchebag camping." Corporate Accountant C steps in with the opinion that to change the gameplay so radically could endanger one of the company's primary sources of income, and Executive Producer B cancels the idea. Keen Young Designer A gently cries himself to sleep, wondering why they bother with designers when the company is so afraid of screwing with its billion-dollar recipe.

It's obvious that Modern Warfare 3 is a game that is terrified of breaking the magical and mysterious ingredients that made the original Modern Warfare such a phenomenon. At its core the underlying game mechanics are precisely the same as they were four years ago – the gunplay is functionally identical. The new Strike Package system simply shuffles around existing killstreak abilities, tweaking them into a slightly different appearance. At the end of the day you'll still be getting blown into little wet chunks by unseen missiles and strike choppers, but now you'll have a few more tools to counter them with. Weapons now have their own ranking system and perks, and again, like the Strike Package system, their impact on the game is minimal.

Welcome to 2007.

The technology that powers the game is also basically unchanged from the 2007 version, despite the inclusion of SSAO, a technique that should have resulted in more realistic lighting. In those four years PC power has made giant leaps and bounds, with games like Crysis 2, The Witcher 2 and Battlefield 3 showing what can be done when a concerted effort is made to tap into the PC's power. Alongside these titles Modern Warfare 3 looks creaking and old, its blocky environs rendered with a flat and dull lighting engine. Similarly the soundscape presents a wall of distorted sound rather than the brutal high fidelity of its competitors. It's obvious that the game is targeted at the Xbox 360 and PS3's limitations, but surely Activision could have poured some of its enviable profits into enhancing the PC version, even if it does make up less than 10% of the sales?

"One facet that I'm glad to see remain the same is the game's rock-solid response from user input..."

One facet that I'm glad to see remain the same is the game's rock-solid response from user input, a lesson that Battlefield 3 could well learn. In MW3 your gun is aimed exactly where you point it, and the usually excellent hit detection means you never doubt the outcome of a close encounter of the bullet kind. I say "usually" as I've noticed quite a bit of lag during my online testing, showing that the mixed Peer to Peer/Dedicated Server model could still use some refinement.

For many Call of Duty fans the lack of gameplay and technological evolution won't mean a damn. They're simply after more of the same, and MW3 delivers the same by the truckload – if you want a close-range, twitch-based shooter, this is as good as it gets. There's no point comparing it to Battlefield 3, as the two games' take on the FPS genre couldn't be more different. One delivers a massive open battlefield where the emphasis is on variety and experimentation, while the other is all about beating the other guy to the trigger.

A staggering 16 maps are included right off the bat, delivering more multiplayer content at launch than any FPS I can recall. Each is a masterfully designed labyrinth tailor-made to satisfy a certain style of gameplay; there's plenty here for both snipers and run 'n' gunners to get excited about.

The co-op Spec Ops section has also been given lots of love, with another whopping 16 missions for you and a friend to blaze through. Most are based on campaign sections, but you'll get to see the action from a very different point of view. For example, the campaign version of one mission sees you protecting a VIP, yet the co-op version puts you in the Kevlar vest of the kidnappers trying to capture the VIP. Many of these two player Spec Ops missions include vastly different experiences for each player, doubling their replay value, and the entire Spec Ops package stands out as a truly unique and exciting element in MW3's arsenal.

The one entirely new addition to the game also arrives in the co-op section, a Horde-like mode called Survival. Like its progenitor, fighting off endless waves of increasingly tough enemies is a thrill, and is surprisingly the one area of the game where the AI is mildly interesting.

The other major new addition to the game, Elite, is sadly missing in action on the PC. Delayed due to concerns about cheats, I've yet to hear of a delivery date. The fact that the developers are so worried about cheats is of great concern and implies that MW3 will be plagued by aim bots and wall hacks once again. I'm not sure why a cut-back version of Elite wasn't made ready for launch, removing the competitions that could have been affected by cheats.

The low system requirements will run fine on even low-end PCs.

I can understand why Modern Warfare 3 has changed so little in the last four years, given that so much money is resting upon its shoulders, but that doesn't make this developmental stasis any more forgivable. If Activision doesn't allow its developers to experiment with and evolve the Call of Duty experience, instead forcing them to pump out an endless cycle of yearly clones, it risks turning another of its most successful brands into a Guitar Hero-sized catastrophe. Yet for many, Modern Warfare 3 will be exactly what they expected from the series, delivering the same experience they've been enjoying for the last four years. All they want is a set of new maps, and a few tweaks to the unlock and ranking system, and that's exactly what Modern Warfare 3 delivers. Unfortunately I don't fit into that group; I like my gaming experiences to grow and change significantly over the years, provided the core gameplay remains compelling. And in that regard Modern Warfare 3 hasn't met my expectations, feeling more like a Modern Warfare map pack than the third, highly evolved iteration of a major series. What you get out of the game will depend very much on which camp you fit into.

Spy Guy says: Are these guys freaking crazy? Giving just a "good" score to such a high profile game is sure to elicit more than a few death threats in the mail. And yet, I have to agree with them - the reason that the original Modern Warfare was so great was the innovation it brought to the series. Part 2 got away with being more of the same because it still felt fresh, yet third time around I can't help but feel it's all a little stale. What do you think of MW3?